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arXiv:1606.04388 · Journal of Physics G Nuclear and Particle Physics

Formation of selfbound states in a one-dimensional nuclear model—a renormalization group based density functional study

Sandra Kemler, Martin Pospiech, Jens Braun

Published Dec 5, 2016• 25 citations
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Abstract

Abstract In nuclear physics, density functional theory (DFT) provides the basis for state-of-the art studies of ground-state properties of heavy nuclei. However, the direct relation of the density functional underlying these calculations and the microscopic nuclear forces is not yet fully understood. We present a combination of DFT and renormalization group (RG) techniques which allows to study selfbound many-body systems from microscopic interactions. We discuss its application with the aid of systems of identical fermions interacting via a long-range attractive and short-range repulsive two-body force in one dimension. We compute ground-state energies, intrinsic densities, and density correlation functions of these systems and compare our results to those obtained from other methods. In particular, we show how energies of excited states as well as the absolute square of the ground-state wave function can be extracted from the correlation functions within our approach. The relation between many-body perturbation theory and our DFT-RG approach is discussed and illustrated with the aid of the calculation of the second-order energy correction for a system of N identical fermions interacting via a general two-body interaction. Moreover, we discuss the control of spuriously emerging fermion self-interactions in DFT studies within our framework. In general, our approach may help to guide the development of energy functionals for future quantitative DFT studies of heavy nuclei from microscopic interactions.

DOI
10.1088/0954-3899/44/1/015101

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We demonstrate for the first time that a density-functional-theory-aided functional-renormalization-group (DFT-RG) method describes well the characteristic features of the ground and excited states of an interacting many-body system in a unified manner. The DFT-RG method is applied to a (1+1)(1+1)(1+1)-dimensional spinless nuclear matter. For the ground state, the equation of state (EOS) is calculated, and it is shown that the resultant saturation energy, which is derived from the minimum point of the EOS with respect to the density, is found to be close to the result of the Monte Carlo simulation. For the excited states, the density--density spectral function is calculated, and it is found that our result reproduces a notable feature of the density--density spectral function of the non-linear Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid: The spectral function has a singularity at the edge of its support of the lower-energy side. These findings suggest that the DFT-RG method is a promising first-principle scheme to analyze the excited states as well as the ground states of quantum many-body systems starting from the inter-particle interaction.
The functional renormalization group provides a nonperturbative and systematically improvable route to constructing density functionals for quantum many-body systems from microscopic Hamiltonians. Here we advance this program by benchmarking functional-renormalization-group density functional theory (FRG-DFT) against the exact thermodynamics of the single-site Bose-Hubbard model. This model provides an ideal testing ground because it is analytically solvable, yet remains subtle in the imaginary-time coherent-state path integral, where a naive continuum treatment generates a spurious self-interaction. We show that a careful Hubbard-Stratonovich derivation identifies the self-interaction correction term that must be included in the FRG-DFT flow to recover the exact thermodynamics. We then systematically compare several closures of the resulting hierarchy of flow equations for the free energy, chemical potential, and connected density correlators over broad ranges of density, temperature, and interaction strength. The benchmark shows that the free energy is comparatively robust, whereas the chemical potential and fluctuation observables provide much sharper diagnostics of the hierarchy closure. A maximum-entropy closure gives the most accurate overall description and reproduces even the low-temperature oscillatory structure of the connected two-density correlator. These results identify two general requirements for functional approaches to quantum thermodynamics: the renormalization group flow equation must retain the equal-time contact subtraction to avoid spurious self-interactions, and any closure of the hierarchy must preserve the statistical consistency of density correlators. This work provides a controlled foundation for deriving ab initio density functionals for quantum many-body systems across condensed-matter, ultracold-atom, and nuclear physics, as well as quantum chemistry.
The Similarity Renormalization Group (SRG) is investigated as a powerful yet practical method to modify nuclear potentials so as to reduce computational requirements for calculations of observables. The key feature of SRG transformations that leads to computational benefits is the decoupling of low-energy nuclear physics from high-energy details of the inter-nucleon interaction. We examine decoupling quantitatively for two-body observables and few-body binding energies. The universal nature of this decoupling is illustrated and errors from suppressing high-momentum modes above the decoupling scale are shown to be perturbatively small. To explore the SRG evolution of many-body forces, we use as a laboratory a one-dimensional system of bosons with short-range repulsion and mid-range attraction, which emulates realistic nuclear forces. The free-space SRG is implemented for few-body systems in a symmetrized harmonic oscillator basis using a recursive construction analogous to no-core shell model implementations. Building on one-dimensional results we performed the first practical evolution of three-dimensional many-body forces within the No-Core Shell Model basis. Results for the 3H binding energy are consistent with previous calculations involving momentum-space evolution of only two-body forces, and validate expectations from calculations in the one-dimensional oscillator basis. When applied to 4He calculations, the two- and three-body oscillator matrix elements yield rapid convergence of the ground-state energy with a small net contribution of the induced four-body force. The radius of light nuclei is also explored in the three-dimensional basis.
We demonstrate for the first time that a functional-renormalization-group aided density-functional theory (FRG-DFT) describes well the characteristic features of the excited states as well as the ground state of an interacting many-body system with an infinite number of particles in a unified manner. The FRG-DFT is applied to (1+1) D spinless nuclear matter. For the excited states, the density–density spectral function is calculated at the saturation point obtained in the framework of FRG-DFT, and it is found that our result reproduces a notable feature of the density–density spectral function of the nonlinear Tomonaga–Luttinger liquid: The spectral function has a singularity at the edge of its support on the lower-energy side. These findings suggest that the FRG-DFT is a promising first-principles scheme to analyze the excited states as well as the ground states of quantum many-body systems starting from the inter-particle interaction.